reel. It is constructed with a hard rubber frame, Germansilver spool and fittings, steel pivot and cap, center action, and with an adjustable click. It is very light and of a graceful and practicable shape, and multiplies three times. By using the click it answers well for fly-fishing.

It is a very easy-running and rapid-working reel, being second, only, in this respect to the famous Frankfort reel, though unlike the latter, is not so likely to overrun, and, on this account, is to be preferred by many anglers, who find it difficult to control, with the thumb, the very free action of that reel. Besides it is furnished at about half the price of the Frankfort reel, and is, withal, lighter. Nos. 3 and 4 are the best sizes for the Black Bass angler.

NO REEL.

Those who, from any cause, can not manage a multiplying reel, might adopt the "Thames" style of bait-casting, which is much in vogue in England, in which the reel is dispensed with. The line is made fast to the butt of the rod, and carried through the guides or rings. When ready for a cast, the line is pulled back through the guides, and laid in coils at the feet of the angler, leaving twelve or fifteen feet of line hanging from the tip of the rod. Our angler then grasps the line a few feet from the sinker and bait, gives it a few rapid whirls around his head, and casts it as far as he can, the rod in the meantime being held firmly in the left hand, and pointing toward the water. Long casts can be made in this manner, and the line retrieved more rapidly than by the aid of any reel, but to the expert reel angler the game would not be worth the candle.

POSITION OF THE REEL ON THE ROD.

In order to allow the thumb to be used in controlling the cast, a multiplying reel should never be placed less than six inches from the extreme butt of the rod, and should be so placed as to be underneath when reeling up the line. I am aware that some prefer it on top, but the former mode is preferable for the following reasons: The weight of the reel naturally takes it under the rod, enabling the rod to be held steadier when reeling the line, or playing the fish; the strain of the line falls upon the guides, causing a uniform working of the rod; the line is more easily reeled up, and it was intended to be used in this

manner.

The left hand should grasp the rod immediately over the reel, the thumb and forefinger embracing the rod above the reel and as close to it as possible, the ring and little fingers clasping the under surface of the reel, while the middle finger is left free to guide the line on the spool, and prevent bunching. I have noticed that all anglers who prefer to have the butt of the rod extending a foot or more below the reel, always use the reel on top, and when reeling in a fish, they invariably rest the butt against the stomach.

CHAPTER XI.

FISHING-LINES.

"I will lose no time, but give you a little direction how to make and order your lines, and to color the hair of which you make your lines, for that is very needful to be known of an angler."-IZAAK WALTON.

No doubt but many of my readers have often wondered, as I have done, where all the fine fishing-lines were made. Inquiries of the dealers failed to elicit any definite information, only such answers being obtained, as "We make them ourselves," or, "They are manufactured expressly for us," or, "They are imported for our trade."

There has ever seemed to be some mystery connected with it, though why, I can not imagine. The real manufacturers are certainly not generally known outside of the trade, and their goods are seldom marked with their own names. I do not remember ever to have seen an advertisement of a fish-line manufacturer. Perhaps it is not necessary, as the angler is supplied through the dealer, and the wholesale dealers are comparatively few.

Thinking that an account of one of the best manufactories of fishing-lines in this country, if not in the world, would not prove uninteresting, I reproduce the following description of the factory of Henry Hall & Sons, at Highland Mills, Orange County, New York, from the New York Times of June 6, 1880:

HOW FISH-LINES ARE MADE.

American fish-lines are the best in the world, because we use the most perfect machinery and materials in their manufacture. There are in this country five or six large establishments devoted exclusively to this production. They represent a capital of about $250,000, and produce about $100,000 worth of lines per year. The fish-line is an object of contempt to a certain class of closet philosophers, but its production at least employs money and brains with the same earnestness that marks our manufacture of more weighty objects. The largest fish-line factory in the world is the Highland Mills, Orange County, in this State, and if our anglers were only capable of boasting a little they might brag of our beating the world in the quality as well as in the quantity of our lines. In visiting this establishment I learned many interesting facts about the materials and the processes of making fish-lines. We all feel a certain awe and curiosity about the slender, tapered line that flies through the air so gracefully, yet has the amazing strength to hold a Salmon, a Trout, or a Bass in his most frantic efforts to escape. And the feeling is well justified, for not only is a fine line a proper object for respect and interest, but many of the processes of its creation are secrets veiled from the eye of even the elect. Lines are made of three substances, either cotton, linen, or silk, and they are either twisted or braided. The twisted lines may be made by hand, but braided lines are always made by machines devised especially for the purpose. For fine lines, only the finest, strongest, and longest fibers can be used. The selection of the material is, therefore, made with great care. It is spun to order in sizes to suit different kinds of lines. The bleaching of the yarn has to be very carefully done to prevent any loss of strength by chemical action on the fiber, and only vegetable dyes are used in coloring.

In the storeroom are piles of flax in skeins, which has been spun to order in Ireland, France, Belgium, and Germany. A variety of flax is needed, because that of one country is most desirable for its durability and that of another for its strength, so that the union of several kinds of thread in a line gives it greater general excellence. The exact size must be maintained throughout the thread. And the exact amount of twist, varying from two to nine turns to the inch, must be given; for if the threads be either too loosely or too tightly

twisted the strength of the line is impaired. The cotton is spun expressly from selected stock in this country, and the silk, also, is spun here. The best silk is Tsatlee machine twist; the genuineness of the stock can not be doubted, if judged by the foreign character of its tickets:

"Hung yu Silk Hong. Yuekee chop. By selecting No. 1, Fine re-reeled Tsatlee silk. When obliged to Merchants best owing their regards, please to notice carefully of our sign, are without mistaken. This chop is myself reeled true Tsatlee Thown Silks."

More can not be asked. This silk is spun at silk factories and delivered on bobbins. The fineness of some of it may be judged by the fact that 3,200 yards of a thread weighs only one ounce, and yet the threads run sometimes 2,000 yards without a break. The grass lines, sold under the names of Japanese grass, sea grass, and catty grass, are all male of raw silk. The yarns of flax are wound on bobbins, and those of cotton are "beamed or wound on a cylinder in

such a way that they can be run off it without tangling.

The twisted lines are made in a walk," a narrow shed about 400 feet long. At the head of the walk are two machines, driven by steam. They consist of pulleys, with long ropes for belts running off to the foot of the shed; also of a lot of spindles, turning very rapidly, and lines running overhead along the walk enable men at any point to move levers or stop and start the machinery at will. Two cars run on tracks down the walk; they carry the beams or cylinders of thread or the bobbins. The operator places the bobbins on pins on the cars, so that the threads may unwind; the car is brought up to the machine; he gathers up the threads in groups of three, and ties each group to a spindle in the machine. When all the 24 spindles are furnished with threads, he starts the machine, the spindles turn and twist each group of three threads into a strand; at the same time the car moves slowly along to unwind the threads from the bobbins as fast as the twist takes them up. The operator walks behind or beside the car to watch the yarns, remove lumps, and impurities from them, or to break off defective portions of a thread. The car at intervals passes under a frame hanging over the track; this frame is provided with wire hoops or fingers that descend automatically and hook under the strands after the car has passed, to sustain them, so that the weight of the long strings may not interfere with their twisting evenly in